MARINE FOOD FISHES 135 
wonder that the sole is scarce and that plaice are 
rapidly diminishing in numbers when one thinks of how 
the fishing grounds are being constantly scraped by the 
nets of English, Dutch, French, German, Swedish and 
Norwegian trawlers. 
As an illustration of the intensity of fishing in the 
North Sea, I quote from the experiments of the Marine 
Biological Association, conducted by Professor Garstang. 
In one year alone fifteen hundred plaice were marked 
with metal tabs, and released outside the three-mile 
limit. Within twelve months twenty-one per cent. of 
these fish were recaptured, and returned to the Lowestoft 
station of the Association. On the Dogger Bank no less 
than forty per cent. of marked plaice were recaptured. 
As these marking experiments were done with the 
object of tracing the growth and migrations of the 
plaice, it necessitated the return of the fish itself to 
the station. We may, therefore, reasonably presume 
that twenty-one and forty per cent. does not repre- 
sent the total capture of marked fish, for in some 
instances the tabs would escape the notice of the 
fishermen, and in a few cases the fish would not be 
forwarded: 
In consequence of this intensity of fishing, the Dogger 
Bank now holds no indigenous plaice, but depends for 
its supply upon the annual migration of fish from the 
coastal grounds. 
Not only are the larger plaice and other flat fish 
decimated in this manner, but countless millions of 
